Still an Innocent
by Kathryn Claire O'Connor
Summary: He lost his balance when life began to hit him too hard, and lost his mind trying to get that balance back, but JJ has to believe that somewhere inside of this shell of the man that she knew, he still has that same innocence that he always did. Inspired by the Taylor Swift song, "Innocent."


Jennifer Jareau swallowed with difficulty, looking up with tortured eyes at the name plastered across the front of the building. _Bennington Sanitarium._ Never in her worst nightmares would she have ever thought that she might really find herself here for this purpose, and yet here she was. She pushed open the heavy entrance door to the place and located the proper room – now shared by both mother and son – before she entered the sterile room. The staff obviously tried to make the room cozy, but it still gave off an aura that screamed "hospital," making JJ's skin crawl, and that was only the easiest thing to take in about this visit.

She had tried to prepare herself, but nothing could steal her for the picture of misery that she saw when she looked at the familiar yet unrecognizable man who sat stooped over in a wheelchair by the room's lone window. Tears pricked the back of her eyes as her hand flew up of its own accord to cover her mouth as she gasped.

_Oh, Spence, you really did it this time..._

It was the god-forsaken job, the whole team knew, that had pushed him over the edge. The more the young man had seen, the less he had been able to distance himself from the horror of it all. The death of Maeve, the young woman that he had loved, had started him down this awful road, and less than two years later, he was here. After her death, he had thrown himself even harder into his work. He had never quite recovered from the grief, but found that helping others through the work that the BAU did had provided his only relief. The only problem with that was that the team was far from perfect, and as much as they all hated the fact, they sometimes lost. Every one of those cases had begun to eat at the genius's very soul until his mind had begun to slip away from him. In the end, Spencer's inability to distance himself had left him in his own war path. It was like he had lost his balance when Maeve died, and in trying to get it back, he had lost his very mind.

JJ screwed her eyes closed, suddenly thinking of Henry, her son and Spencer's godson, and about how very innocent he was of all the atrocities of the world. She wished that somehow Spencer had been able to retain even now that similar innocence that he had still had for so long. Losing it had been the end of the man as she knew him.

For the longest time she had envied him that innocence knowing that if he had succumbed to the seemingly natural way of things, he probably would've lost more innocence then even a four year old could claim, considering the way that he had grown up. He wasn't like Henry, who always had someone there for him, always a bigger bed to crawl into. Spencer had practically raised himself, which had meant growing up way too fast, and still he had clung to that innocence. But even he couldn't hold onto it forever, and losing it had hurt him more than anyone would've ever thought it might.

Looking at him now, even from across the room, she could tell that he was nothing more than a shell of the man that she had known. Spencer was no longer the loving godfather that Henry had practically worshipped, believing every word that came out of his mouth. After all, he was Uncle 'Pence, and he knew _everything_... She smiled, biting her lip against the tears a thought and the accompanying memory suddenly flew at her. Spencer was no longer the godfather who had stayed over at her house one Christmas Eve, waiting up for Henry to catch a glimpse of Santa Clause, acting for the entire world like he believed in all those fairytales. That man was gone.

"Hey, Spence," JJ whispered, approaching him and crouching down in front of his wheelchair.

She reached for his hand and flinched when he jerked away from her touch. With all of the consideration given to his schizophrenia, she often let herself forget that he had also fully given into the every whim of his Asperger's Syndrome, until his behavior was more that of someone with a vicious case of autism. It broke her heart to see him like this.

"It's alright," JJ murmured, retracting her touch. "You just wait and see; you're still the brightest guy in the world, if you want my opinion." Her voice cracked as she said, "You aren't what you've seen, Spence, or what you've done. I don't care about your parents, or the drugs, or all of the people that we both know you've had to kill. You're stronger then that; you're better than that. Somewhere in you, Spence, you're still an innocent. I know you are."

Spencer fidgeted, staring intently down at his ever-moving hands as he ignored her presence.

For some reason, this made JJ angry, and she found herself saying, "You know that you could've come to me when you started having trouble, Spence. I know that you never wanted to talk about any of it, but you could have, instead of just reliving it in your nightmares every night. Maybe if you had talked to me – to someone, anyone – about what was going on, then you wouldn't be like this. You wouldn't be so... shattered."

Spencer – or what was left of him – just stared out the window, curling away from her passionate tone. Even with him right beside her, he was still so very far away, so horribly unreachable.

JJ sighed and changed the subject, smiling sadly. "See out there?" she murmured. "It's summer now. Henry misses his firefly catching buddy, you know. He still catches them sometimes, but he says it's not the same because his Uncle Spence isn't there to catch the ones who fly higher for him. I always loved watching you guys does that; you would turn into such a little kid. I never could be sure who was more exhausted by the time you two came inside, you or him. I always noticed that on those nights after you'd caught fireflies and he would ask you to stay overnight with him, no matter what sort of a case we had just been on, you never had nightmares. It was like Henry kept the monsters from catching up to you or something. Or maybe he just recharged that innocence of yours. Do you think you've still got that innocence, Spence, somewhere inside of you? I do; but its okay, I get it. Life had been incredibly hard on you. But, Spence, I know that you're in there somewhere, I just know it. If you can act like such a kid at thirty, I can't believe that absolutely all of that innocence is gone only two years later; I won't; that's not how growing up works. There's still so much that could be ahead of you, Spencer, don't you know that? Something tells me that if you could break out of this, there would still be so much growing up for you to do. I don't care what you think, nobody knows everything by the time they're thirty-two. Somewhere in your thirty-two year old self, even with everything that you've already done, you've still got some growing up to do. I know it hurts that Maeve died, Spence, I know that, but I also know that you're stronger than letting it destroy you like this. If you would've just hung on a little longer, I know that someone else would've come along, someone you could have actually met with in person and had a normal relationship with." Her voice dropped to a whisper as she reminded him, "That's what happened to me when I found Will after you and I decided that we couldn't pursue a relationship because of our jobs. That's what happened to Hotch after Haley died when he met Beth. And Morgan is doing a wonderfully good job of helping Penelope get over Kevin, did you know that?"

She sighed again, continuing, "See, that's the thing about that fickle mind of yours; so strong in some places, but having such a fragile grip on reality in others. But I really do mean it, Spence, with everything that you've gotten over in your life, with everything that you haven't let beat you, why this? You're stronger then this too. It's never too late to turn back around, Spence; to come back to us. Life may be tough, but we both know that you're tougher if you want to be. You're only thirty-two; you've got too much time ahead of you to stop living already, regardless of what you've seen and had to do. You're still an innocent, Spence, and it's never too late for you to come back to us."

Tears clogged her throat, pressing upon the backs of her eyes as she said a rapid goodbye to him and practically ran out to her car before the tears found their release, falling onto the hot Nevada asphalt of the parking lot. Seeing him so broken like this hurt more than anything because the cold, hard truth was that it _was_ too late. Heartbreakingly, Spencer's mental decline was not reversible. The Spencer Reid that she knew and loved was gone forever, but in a way he was still the same to her. After all, he was still and innocent.

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**This is an idea that I've had in the back of my mind for about six months and I finally got it down on paper while I'm in between bigger fics. I hope you guys enjoyed it! Reviews would make my day! Up next I will be writing a series of "Yours, Mine and Ours" one-shots/drabbles and making them all into a story entitled "Blending.":) **


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